Agreeing with the last 2 posts about Snubbull and Staryu. Eeven in GS (because those posts seem to be talking about Crystal), I think they are better than the list gives them credit for.
I've been meaning to do another batch of write-ups since last year but only just found some motivation recently. I still have about 3 more runs I want to do before I consider this project of mine "complete", but it's possible these may not be completed for quite a while due to other priorities I have. In the meantime though, here's the current batch!
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Abra
My decision to run Abra was less to do with seeing whether it was “good”, since it obviously is and you don’t need to run it to figure that out. When running Abra, the thing I was most interested in was whether trading availability made much of a difference. I have previously asserted that having trade vs. no trade be in separate tiers isn't necessary, but I felt like I should test it out again just to be fair.
The thing I can say is that every now and again, the power difference between Kadabra and Alakazam absolutely DOES matter. It's situational, but occasionally I found that Kadabra would barely fall short of a OHKO that Alakazam would have gotten, mostly on some random route Pokemon that was of little threat to my team anyway.
Of the gym leaders I tested Kadabra vs. Alakazam on (by which I mean I cloned the Kadabra I had at the time of challenging the leader and evolved the clone as a point to comparison), I found the following:
- Found no significant difference against Whitney: my level 20 Kadabra and Alakazam seemed to hit the same benchmarks offensively and defensively, both can actually sweep Whitney but it depends on move selection luck
- No difference whatsoever against Morty: Kadabra outspeeds and OHKOes his whole team
- No significant difference against Chuck: level 30 Kadabra and Alakazam both 2HKOed Poliwrath
- Jasmine was the only gym leader I tested where the difference seemed to matter: while neither level 32 Kadabra or Alakazam were able to land the OHKO with Fire Punch, Alakazam was able to survive Iron Tail from full health whereas Kadabra was OHKOed, Kadabra OHKOed the Magnemites though
- Seems to be no difference against Pryce: Alakazam might be able to land a OHKO on Piloswine with a favourable roll, but otherwise Kadabra beats this chump
I stopped testing after this. My conclusion is that the stat increase Alakazam gets does matter sometimes, but not enough to justify the tier split that the list currently displays. As far as I’m concerned, Kadabra is still one of the best Pokemon in the game, having more power, Speed and coverage than most things not named Alakazam, and I think untraded Abra is still deserving of S-tier.
Farfetch'd
I think (hope lol) this is the last of the Normal birds that I have on my list of things to run. Farfetch’d is a bit of an oddity because it arrives later than the other birdies (just before Morty) and has overall inferior stats. Its stats are perhaps tolerable when it is first obtained (and it actually has more Attack than Noctowl and Pidgeotto) but in the long run it is quite underpowered.
Much like in RBY, the main thing it has to distinguish itself as a Pokemon is its unique move pool. It gets Swords Dance at just level 25 and will learn Agility later as well, giving it an opportunity to boost on some stuff and sweep larger teams. In practice I found this to be fairly unhelpful though – Farfetch’d is generally too slow and weak to boost against stuff that it would need to boost against in the first place unless you shove healing items down its throat constantly. As per RBY, Farfetch’d also learn Cut and Fly, and is the only Pokemon available in-game to learn both moves aside from the Dragonite that you’ll never have until the very end of the game, if at all (Charizard also learns both but is obviously unavailable).
On its own merits it works fine for route things, but it’s an unremarkable Normal-type otherwise. I would say that it’s maybe on par with Noctowl AT BEST.
Ledyba
I feel like Ledyba is seen as the poster child for terrible early route mons. Sadly, I think it lives up to this reputation, but I also think it's a little better than some might give it credit for, and at the very least it sits on a rung above Ditto tier.
I think its strengths lie in its move pool, which isn't exactly amazing, but is at least unique for a Pokemon of its typing and still fairly good in its own right. As far as offensive options go, its ability to learn Thunderpunch and Ice Punch grants it great neutral coverage and allows it to distinguish itself nicely from Butterfree and Venomoth. In fact, an elemental punch from Ledian does more damage against neutral targets than a Confusion from Butterfree or Venonat, so for a little while Ledian ends up being the strongest of the special attacking Bugs. It also learns Dig, which is a move that Scyther and co. would kill to have access to. The move is somewhat wasted on Ledyba due to its abysmal Attack, but it happens to hit Magnemite and Magneton (the only things that resist Electric/Ice coverage in GSC) super-effectively, and if Ledyba happens to find itself on a team where nothing else needs to learn Dig, you may as well give it to Ledyba to maximise coverage.
The other neat options it gets from its move pool are dual screens and Safeguard. Ledian learns all 3 moves at level 24, and while I didn't use dual screens for this particular run, I found its relatively fast Safeguard to be the best thing about it. It is so nice to be able to ignore the annoying Thunder Wave spam from Clair's Dragonair crew, and it can stop Poliwrath's Hypnosis also (Ledian with Safeguard and Thunderpunch happens to counter Poliwrath very well). It unfortunately works less well against Gengar since the ghost will outspeed Ledian and possibly sleep it before it can block Hypnosis, but it might miss and could be used there also (plus you can always set it up against Haunter instead).
It also happens to be in the Fast experience group and...that's about it. Otherwise, Ledyba is kind of bad. It is among the most underpowered things you can find it this game and it really doesn't do a great deal of damage to anything relevant, mostly limited to support with Safeguard/screens and attacking random stuff on routes. It is especially bad during the early game where it is unevolved and stuck using Tackle, Comet Punch and Swift for damage. The only thing it has during this time is a "good" match-up against Bellsprout, but that isn't unique to Ledyba and battles will still take ages because Tackle does so little damage. Otherwise, it requires significant babying until Goldenrod, and from there it can start to hold its own a little better.
I think E-tier is justified, but I think it has a few assets that would prevent it from dropping down to a hypthetical F-tier should that tier be split.
Lickitung
All I’ll say about this is that I think it’s a case of "too little, too late". Lickitung has a great move pool and I could see it being decent if it were obtainable earlier, but instead it's locked away behind the 7-badges requirement with stuff with Tangela and Swinub. It gets very little time to contribute, and it ultimately very slow and not all that powerful, although it has moderate bulk. An easy E-tier.
Magikarp (Red Gyarados)
I chose to use the Red Gyarados rather than catch a Magikarp and grind it up. While the latter option benefits from earlier availability, I don’t think the tedious grinding period is really justified. The Red Gyarados also benefits from guaranteed awesome DVs. Wherever Magikarp ends up being ranked, I think that its placement should reflect the Red Gyarados’ performance rather than that of a standard Magikarp.
Gyarados has overall great stats but a move pool that leaves something to be desired. It really only has Normal moves to use its fantastic Attack with, and its generous special move pool is wasted by its sucky Sp. Atk stat, although the STAB boost for Surf helps a bit.
Despite this flaw and its relatively “late” appearance, I actually think that the Red Gyarados is among the best Pokemon in the game. The reason(s) I think this is because it is a high level capture that will exceed or at least match the average level of your team (depending on when you go for it), and it is an encounter that is not only guaranteed, but mandatory for completion of the game (a distinction shared only with Sudowoodo, the starters and arguably Togepi). To me, the Red Gyarados is basically the mid-game equivalent to Lugia and Ho-oh that you HAVE to battle to win the game, and as far as I’m concerned it is just as destructive in practise (arguably more so than Lugia). Seriously, even with the lack of synchronicity between its stat distribution and its move pool, it is an excellent sweeper with just Thrash and Surf, and it can hold its own in match-ups too. It can also act as a HM slave with Strength/Surf/Whirlpool/Waterfall AND STILL be an excellent battling Pokemon.
I therefore think that can justifiably be called A-tier.
Nidoran-M
I've already done Nidoran-F and this is basically identical to that. The fact that it learns Horn Attack when Nidoran-F doesn't was a significant difference in RBY, but with the Headbutt TM rendering this obsolete, the only important differences are Nidoran-M's slightly better stat distribution, their genders (relevant against Miltank and its Attract), and learning a different move at level 23 in their final forms (Thrash for the male, Body Slam for the female), assuming you can grab the Moon Stone in Tohjo Falls before reaching that level. The male is probably better overall, but the difference isn't enough to justify a tier difference between either.
Reiterating my points about the female, I think Nidoran-M is a solid option due to its good experience growth rate, versatile move pool and well-rounded stats. I think its main flaw is that its Johto match-ups are a bit hit-and-miss. Double Kick does allow it to contribute against Miltank (although you won't be beating it one-on-one) and it can do well against Jasmine, but it is completely useless against Morty and has to deal with its Water and Ice weaknesses against Chuck, Jasmine, Lance and Clair, not to mention Will's Psychic spam. It definitely needs a bit of support at times. Its lack of good STAB for much of Johto also presents a slight limitation to its sweeping power in the short term, and it relies on the precious Earthquake TM to finally obtain an adequate STAB option. Overall though, I think it can easily slide onto any team due to its wide selection of coverage moves, so I still consider it an above-average Pokemon, probably B-tier.
Psyduck
I've spoken about Psyduck's merits in the past, but yes, I think it's one of the better mid-game Waters. Or rather, I think Golduck is one of the better mid-game Waters. Psyduck isn't all that strong and it takes a while to evolve, but you can just catch a wild Golduck instead and cut right to the chase, and I think it’s worth going for.
Golduck's niche among mid-game Waters is not so much related to its battling prowess - its stats are good but not outstanding, and its move pool is basically the default one that most Waters get with the mostly useless Confusion thrown in - but more due to sheer convenience. Golduck can be caught in the pond on Route 35, thus requiring less of a back-track than, say, Lapras, and arrives as high as level 24, with a good grinding opportunity in Wobbuffet's section of Dark Cave if needed. In addition, while stuff like Lapras and Tentacruel have to wait for a bit for their best moves to become available, Golduck can pretty much get its complete move set immediately, with Surf, Ice Punch and Headbutt/Strength being readily available. Also, while its stats aren't outstanding, its Sp Atk. is among the highest of the available Water-types, making it a great force on routes. Its ability to learn Waterfall may also be of note considering Feraligatr, Lapras, Tentacruel and Quagsire are all unable to learn it in this generation, although I consider this to be a minor point since there are numerous slaves that you can catch that can use that move.
Mostly it's good for the same reasons that other Waters are good. I'm not entirely sure that it should be ranked above stuff like Lapras as it is now just because I think those have genuine advantages over Golduck and which one is used comes down to preference, but it should be B-tier as an absolute minimum.
Shuckle
This is another Pokemon that I think is a little better than it might seem at first glance, although not by much. I personally like to view it as a more extreme version of Umbreon. It has a stat distribution that is completely at odds with what is desired for the type of run we base these tiers on, but it can still beat things just by being unkillable, and at the very least makes for strong healing fodder.
I chose to use Shuckie, the gift Shuckle from Cianwood City, for this run, and the nice thing is that it has an easy time beating the wild Tentacool and Tentacruel nearby, so it actually grinds from its starting level 15 quite nicely (Supersonic and Poison chance are both hindrances; Safeguard can help out with those once learned). In terms of raw power, I think that Rollout basically provides it with its only remotely good source of damage. The 4th and 5th hits of Rollout do solid damage even with Shuckle's low Atk, and Shuckle definitely has the staying power to generate the turns needed to get to the final hits of Rollout. However, status and other annoyances will cause problems for Shuckle, as will Rollout's accuracy. Dig, Earthquake, Sludge Bomb and Strength round out the rest of its surprisingly good offensive move pool, although these won't do much damage even when hitting super-effectively.
As a Rock-type, it can hold its own against Team Rocket to an extent, although status will be a nuisance. Otherwise, Shuckle's usefulness outside of being heal fodder is limited. Even with its positives, I consider it to be one of the worst Pokemon available in Johto, but I'm also inclined to think that it is more in-line with something like Ledyba and Delibird in terms of tiering (i.e. bad, but not Smeargle-level bad).
Tauros
Having talked crap about this thing all thread, I finally got around to trying it out on this batch of runs I’ve been doing for this thread. Obviously, its strong point is its stat distribution. It is fast and strong, and it has good defenses overall as well, with only its Sp. Atk being remotely bad. However, it still requires a grind. Its highest catch level is 15 and the average team will probably be at level 22-24. There are thankfully a few decent grinding spots for Tauros, although the experience yields aren’t great for most Pokemon it’ll be fighting against. I went with Route 37 since Stantler at least has good yields, although even then the grinding period felt slow. This is on top of the potential time lost looking for and catching Tauros, since it has a sub-5% encounter rate AND a low catch rate too. These issues have always been my main point of concern with Tauros, and they basically came to pass when I tried it in this run.
Tauros is able to learn Strength immediately, and that only will make it one of the most powerful Pokemon available once trained, assuming the Pokemon doesn’t resist Normal (it will get Return eventually for an upgrade). It is perhaps unfair to say that Tauros’ move pool is “bad” with that in mind, but it’s simply undeniable that Tauros’ move pool is smaller than a lot of other Pokemon when it first becomes available. Surf is useful for Steelix and the occasional Rock, but otherwise Tauros will just be a mono-attacker throughout Johto (Earthquake is available later but is a one-off TM that other things want to learn too). It lacks a good move to hits Ghosts in the meantime which sucks given that Morty is the first gym it can compete in, although it can at least slow Gengar down with Scary Face for support.
Overall, once it gets going, Tauros is a phenomenally powerful Pokemon. Mostly things not resistant to Normal die to it, and Surf (+ Earthquake if available) helps against the stuff that do resist Normal. I think out of Tauros, Stantler and Miltank, Tauros is the one with the strongest case for A-tier. However, I’m still not entirely unconvinced. It is a strong Pokemon stat-wise, but I think that its potential use on a team comes with a notable time-cost that hurts it as a choice for an efficient run, and overall I’m not sure if its strengths really make it superior to the early-route Normals or Miltank/Stantler. I think B-tier is more appropriate.
Teddiursa
Another “post-7 badges” Pokemon, but this one has potential maybe. We know how strong it is from its performance in Crystal and so that needs to be said is that it has overall great stats outside of Speed and an equally great move pool. It should fit nicely onto teams that still happen to have an available slot and would benefit from some more power, but unfortunately being so late and under-leveled is as much as problem as it is for all the other late-Johto Pokemon and so a significant time-cost is incurred for using it. The fact that it’s a fleeing Pokemon doesn’t help its cause either.
It’s difficult to say where it should land in a tier list, but at the very least I would say that is more useful than Phanpy, Gligar, Skarmory, Delibird, Swinub, Lickitung, Doduo, Ponyta and Tangela, and so this should be reflected in the tier list probably.
Tyrogue
Sorry, but this is borderline unusable for an efficient run. Hitmonlee/chan/top are all decently strong to varying extents (I consider lee to be the best of the lot by a significant margin) and Fighting is a solid typing for the Elite 4 and beyond, but in the end it is simply impractical to obtain a Pokemon at level 10 after getting all Johto badges and spending literally HOURS grinding it up to a point of usability. I have little else to say about it other than the fact that I think that it is among the 5 worst Johto Pokemon.
Venonat
I like to think of Venonat as Caterpie and Weedle rolled into a single package. Its stats distribution and level-up move pool (containing status and Psychic-moves) is reminiscent of Butterfree, and yet it has STAB Sludge Bomb much like Beedrill.
As a choice for efficient in-game runs, the biggest problem it faces is that it takes a very long time to reach a point where it feels like a competent Pokemon. Venonat is definitely on the weaker side of things in its unevolved state, and having only Swift and Confusion (both without STAB) for damage in the short-term doesn’t help its cause. The one positive thing I can say about its early performance is that it comes at a reasonable level and can grind somewhat quickly against stuff like Drowzee.
It does improve quite a bit later on though. Venomoth isn’t an amazing Pokemon but its competent, and it has a distinct niche of being a Poison-type with access to Psychic moves, which is helpful against other Poison-types (Psybeam can be learned at level 33 by delaying evolution).
Its current placement in C-tier might be a bit generous to be honest. I think it is a bit burdensome to have on a team for much of its time, at least until evolution, and it only gets a brief stint in Johto and then the post-game to take advantage of it, and even during that time it is merely decent rather than being an over-powered monster that would justify the initial suck period.
Wobbuffet
So back when I made this proposal for a potential splitting of E tier into separate E and F tiers, I decided to leave Wobbuffet in E tier rather than drop it down because I felt like it had enough redeeming qualities from its odd move pool/attacking style to put it ahead of stuff like Smeargle. However, having now used it, I’m actually not as convinced of this and would probably be more inclined to drop it down. In fact, I would sooner drop Wobbuffet than I would drop Shuckle and Yanma!
I found that Wobbuffet relies on a gimmicky form of offense that just doesn’t work 95% of the time. There are two critical problems with using Counter and Mirror Coat to beat flunkies. Firstly, it relies on the AI acting in the right way, and against trainers on routes the randomness of move selections is a huge liability to Wobbuffet. It is especially frustrating against “mixed” attackers that have, say, a Normal move and a special STAB move, and there were too many occasions where I kept picking the wrong move because the AI felt like using Bite when I tried Counter and similar. Even against purely physical or special attackers, Wobbuffet must contend with status moves that can disrupt it or at least extend the battle by another unnecessary turn – Safeguard can help against stuff like confusion at least, especially against stuff that Wobbuffet outspeeds.
Another problem is the fact that most route mons simply do too little damage to Wobbuffet to get a lot of millage out of CounterCoat. I found that I was getting 2HKOes at best on some stuff (on top of the randomness issue above) but sometimes it would require 3 or more successful reflections and battles would just drag on and on and on. OHKOes are very, VERY rare with Wobbuffet. Wobbuffet also gobbles up healing items like nothing else and I quickly became tired of having to recheck my stocks constantly so that I could keep of healthy for long routes.
The one thing that makes me hesitate to call Wobbuffet “Ditto tier” is the fact that Wobbuffet still has substantial value in more important/compulsory match-ups, where the opponents are stronger and less random. In some cases, Wobbuffet can be a “reliable” deletion button on a gym leaders anchor using CounterCoat or possibly even Destiny Bond spam. Some of these match-ups come with the condition of avoiding hax however – Steelix can beat Wobbuffet with a crit, Poliwrath can beat it with a long sleep, and so on.
For most Pokemon, I think that having a high catch level relative to joining time is an asset, but due to the unique way in which it battles, I think Wobbuffet is actually better off staying at lower levels. Wobbuffet can actually be caught as high as level 25 in Dark Cave (and it’s not too difficult to draw it out with the Repel Trick), a relatively high level for when surfing first becomes possible (a requirement for Wobbuffet in Gold/Silver), but mostly you’d be better off catching the lowest level Wobbuffet possible (level 20) and just going with it. In fact, you may as well not bother using it at all for routes, and instead it should just be pulled out in gyms/rival battles/etc and used to remove a particular Pokemon. I think Wobbuffet would still need a source of experience of some kind eventually though, for the higher-leveled late-game trainers, so I think even this approach will result in a significant time-drain.
Where Wobbuffet should end up in a hypothetical E-tier split is perhaps something that needs more discussion, but for the current tier list, there is simply no question that it belongs in E-tier.